VOICE OF THE PEOPLE (letter).

Fences, offenses and good neighbors

The Tribune is to be commended for its recent front-page coverage of the Chicago Housing Authority's Plan for Transformation. Both "Changes to public housing spur State Street revival" (July 30, Metro) and "New neighbors draw the line at Cabrini" (July 31, Page 1) offer important lessons about what's at stake with this historic undertaking to create attractive, mixed-income communities.

Unfortunately, the July 31 article about a fence at the new Orchard Park development on the Near North Side may have misled readers to think the condo owners had constructed a fence between themselves and the renters who relocated to the complex from public housing. Actually, the tenant association--owners and renters collectively--erected the fence to separate their new homes from the old CHA high-rises.

This is an important distinction, especially when taken in the context of the dramatic transformation of the dilapidated State Street public housing corridor into a vibrant community.

We all know that achieving the goals set forth in the transformation plan will not be easy. Redeveloping and rehabbing 25,000 public housing units, providing appropriate relocation and social services to the affected residents, guaranteeing effective property management, and creating successful mixed-income communities requires time, funding, talent, and a bit of luck.

Great breakthroughs have occurred since the new CHA leadership took charge of the agency in 1999. Yet the responsibility for the plan's success goes beyond the CHA itself. With the combined support of residents, developers, social service agencies, community-based organizations, public agencies, the media and every Chicagoan, the CHA will be able to move us beyond the wretched housing, poverty and racial discrimination that has plagued our city for many decades.

And when it does, there will be no need for neighbors to build new fences.